BLOG ALERT: READ DENI’S AB 372 INSULTS ADOPTED PERSONS

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Longtime Bastard activist and Marin Maven Denise Fuller Castellucci (center) has a great blog today: AB 372 Insults Adopted Persons Deni was part of CalOpen’s AB 1349 campaign in 2001-2002. Here’s a sample: My parents were told by the system that we would get all the information when I turned 18. It was a lie. Instead, I would get non-identifying information. What was blocked out with a black pen was completely arbitrary. An adult adoptee in Marin County got her non-id info on a small index card. It is hard to describe what it is like not being trusted with the facts of my own birth. It assumes as an adult I cannot handle the truth and be trusted to be responsible with it. In the eyes of the government I am either a perpetual infant or a potential stalker. Also check out BB Church’s latest on the California Catastrophe. Note on picture: not a single doctor or social worker in the bunch.

BLOG ALERT: LIVING PRO-LIFE CHOICE FOR WOMEN

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A great blog appeared yesterday on Shakesville: Breaking the Silence on Living Pro-Lifer’s Choice for Women posted by first mom “Shaker Anonymous.” It really tears the lid off the anti-abortion pro-adoptionist arguments. It speaks for itself, so I won’t comment on it here. Here’s a snip: They’re [anti-aborts] always blatting on about how concerned they are for us, apparently because women aren’t capable of making decisions without the gently guiding hand of all-knowing patriarchy, lest we irreparably damage our emotions and drown in a whirlpool of remorseful tears. They care ever so deeply about the long-term psychological effects of not having at least 10 months to consider whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, but no mention is ever made about women who actually do give up the baby. Seems to me that anyone who actually does so is lauded far and wide for Doing the Right Thing, but is simultaneously despised for being an unnatural uterus-bearing mechanism which has horribly malfunctioned. Where the fuck did that narrative come from, and why does everyone buy into it at some level? Thanks to Maryanne for the heads up!

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY!

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Here is Shane MacGowan and Kirsty McColl singing New York Fairytale on Top of the Pops. OK, it’s a Christmas song, but I think it’s good for St Patrick’s Day. If you don’t’ think so, don’t play it. Back in 1986 Bastardette was still working at the Ohio State University Theatre. One of her colleagues was actress, director, and OSU Theatre Associate Professor Joy Reilly. Her cousin was the legendary–even then–Shane MacGowan. While still a boy soprano, Shane had sung at Joy’s first wedding, and she recalled him as a “sweet boy,” who despite his later claims, came from an accomplished and intellectual family and had not been to Borstal. Well, that was a long time ago. Even then. Before he filed down his teeth. So Shane and the Pogues were playing in Columbus and Joy and I went to the Newport for the show. Joy had a radio program on WOSU-AM and hoped to tape an interview with him, but it didn’t happen, since Shane was–surprise!–drop dead drunk through the show. And maybe before. As I remember, we weren’t exactly convinced he’d been that drunk while performing. He’d been known to play it up slopping beer all over the Continue Reading →

CALIFORNIA: CARE’S PROBLEM WITH HISTORY–BASTARDS HAVE NONE

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Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past…George Orwell In the last 48 hours, the California Adoption Reform Effort’s Ministry of Truth has removed two CARE documents and their links from its increasingly anorexic website: (1) a letter dated February 24, 2009, to Cal Assembly Judiciary Chair Mike Feuer, in which CARE president Jean Strauss writes bastards and adoptees out of their own rights movement and history and (2) a memo dated February 26, 2009, from CARE’s pricey lobbyist cum Executive Director Stephanie Williams “explaining” to her constituency once more why AB 372 isn’t what it seems to be… and, oh, but the way, we may just have to send some of you down shit creek without a paddle. That’s the beauty of the Internet. Shazaam! History can vanish with the hit of a button, but it can also be rescued with another. Bastards aren’t stupid. As obsessive retrievers and collectors of our own stolen history, we rescue history from the dustbin and guard our treasures with the diligence of Mr. T. You can read what CARE doesn’t want us to read here (letter to Feuer) and here (memo to membership). BASTARDS NEED NOT Continue Reading →

DO-GOODER ALERT: SHOULD BRISTOL PALIN’S BABY HAVE BEEN PUT UP FOR ADOPTION?

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Well, it didn’t take long! Hardly had Bristol Palin announced her break-up with Levi Johnson when somebody asked: Should Bristol Palin’s Baby Have Been Put Up for Adoption? Stephen Waldman, editor-in-chief of BeliefNet posed the question in yesterday’s Huffington Post The whole political debate has assumed that there were only two choices — keeping the baby and having an abortion. Given the long waiting lists of people trying to adopt, wouldn’t offering the baby for adoption have been just as compassionate as raising the child alone? And boy, is he getting dumped on! Some of the biggest dumpers, in fact, are adoptive parents. Janice Taylor, another HuffPo blogger responded: My daughter is adopted,and I think I’m going to surprise you with what I am about to say. I believe that – whenever possible, teenager or not – the child should stay with their mother. The teen mother will need support, for sure – but she doesn’t have to get married. Bristol is a good example of a young mother who has plenty of support, with or without Levi. I’m happily surprised that so many responders stuck a fork in Waldman and his offensive presumption that Bristol Palin should have been Continue Reading →

NEBRASKA FIASCO UPDATE: STATON TERMINATES RIGHTS; LANDRY OUT; DUMPEES STILL IN LIMBO

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I’ve been collecting material to update the Nebraska Fiasco, but haven’t had the time to put everything together. Since the big news on the Fiasco scene Monday was the termination of Gary Staton’s parental rights, I’m catching up a bit here. Please go to Children of the Corn for the complete collection of Nebraska Fiasco blogs. GARY STATON TERMINATES PARENTAL RIGHTSAccording to Omaha Action 3 News, Gary Saton, 36, the widower who “safe havened 9 of his 10 children (the oldest is a legal adult) at Creighton University Medical Center last September, went to court Monday (March 9) to formally terminate his parental rights. Since their abandonment, the seven youngest children, ages 2-15, have been living with an aunt (sometimes described as a great aunt) in Lincoln who will remain their legal guardian until each turns 19. The two oldest boys are, at their own request, living in foster care in Omaha so they can finish high school together. Staton was granted visitation. He planned to visit his former family in Lincoln Monday evening. No word otherwise, on Staton’s current situation except he has moved from the family’s home which has been condemned by the city. Last October, a week Continue Reading →

1984 CALIFORNIA STYLE – NOTE

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I spent the entire weekend with a throbbing jaw and head and had emergency dental surgery yesterday. So, I’ve been out of it. I still am. I’m writing a short note, though, to send you to others, who are covering CARE’s latest shenanigans and re-write of history. I should have something up tomorrow. CARE has written and distributed the biggest fantasy since Bill Pierce’s hallucinogenic Factbook 3. According to CARE, the adoptee rights movement: is a direct result of medical professionals and social workers recognizing that hiding an authentic identity from an adoptee for an entire lifetime is neither healthy nor necessary. This doesn’t even rank as good revisionist history. Please go to: BB ChurchBaby Love Childand CARE updatesitself to read their own words.

ILLINOIS: FEIGENHOLTZ FLOPS IN 5TH:

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Yesterday Illinois State Representative and adoptee rights obstructionist Rep. Sara Feigenholtz lost her bid for Rahm Emmanuel’s 5th District Congressional seat. In a low turn-out special Democratic primary, Feigenholtz, considered by some to be the front runner, scored third in a field of 12 candidates. Our Sara lost to Cook County Commissioner and reformer Mike Quigley. While Feigenholtz and her followers like to think of her as “progressive” (she was endorsed by the National Organization for Women, Emily’s List, Equality Illinois, and SEIU), since the Obama victory in November she’s been demoted to old school Dem. She’s no Obama though she plays one. (Neither is Obama, but I’ll save that for another day!) And it didn’t help that she went negative on old friend Quigley. For those who care about these things, here’s a ward breakdown of the votes. Last night, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin wrote of the voter rebellion In a district the Machine has controlled since 1958 — except for two aberrant years — with congressmen named Rostenkowski, Blagojevich and Emanuel, the 5th was the ultimate insider’s seat. What exactly did an outsider like Quigley have that would change that? Voter rebellion. After a presidential campaign that Continue Reading →

TENNESSEE: REP. DEBERRY TO PUBLIC: MEET ME BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. REFUSES TO DISCUSS PROPOSED GAY ADOPTION BAN IN PUBLIC

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Senator Beauregard Claghorn, the real deal. We all know about adoption and child welfare secrecy: sealed birth recordsanonymous adopteesanonymous first parentsanonymous adoptive parentsanonymous foster parentsstate confiscated identitiesforged government documentsclosed juvenile court hearingssealed juvenile court recordsanonymous tips to CPSsecret adoptionsLate Discovery adoptteesanonymous state-promoted child abandonment baby dump laws And just when you think it can’t get any more secret, we have Rep. John J. DeBerry, Jr, and Sen. Paul Stanley who don’t think it’s the media’s business why they’ve introduced restrictive adoption bills (HB 605 and SB 78) in the Tennessee legislature. The companion bills ( I can’t find the texts, only the summaries) ban unwed cohabiting couples from adopting. Who this really means, of course, is gays and lesbians. “Those people” never come up in the bills’ language, though, except for a passing reference to Tennessee’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Last year these same Junior Claghorns introduced a more strict gay and lesbian ban. Go here for background. Most Tennesseans thought the issue died after an October 2007 ruling by the state Attorney General that there was no legal basis in state law to ban gay couples from adopting. For reasons apparent Continue Reading →

BLOG ALERT : 73 ADOPTEE TAKES DOWN DEFORMERS

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The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity….Andre Gide 73adoptee, has a very important blog today: Compromise Legislation: Why Some Adoptees and Not Others? In fact, it is one of the most important adoptablogs I’ve ever read. If you are on the bastard battlefield, this is something to read, print out, and carry with you. Let it become part of you. Why Some Adoptees And Not Others? goes to the core of our current mess: the bastardization of bastards…by our so-called friends. 73adoptee tears the foundation out from under adopta deformers, who in their rat race to the legislature to get any piececrap law passed on their watch– tramp over the interests and rights of Joe and Jane Bastard. You know, class traitors like CARE (California) ABC (Massachusetts) and Illinois Feigenholtz do-bees. What happens when they get left behind on their own device never seems to cross their minds. Here’s a snip: Isn’t that what conditional legislation does? Pits adoptees against one another, turns us (again!) into guinea pigs racing on the experimental wheel of adoption. The facts of our origins are dangled like tasty tidbits if we only sell Continue Reading →